 if you've lost a lot of weight, but now your metabolism is slow, you're going to love this. Our next caller is Tony from Georgia. Tony, what's happening? How can we help you? I'm doing pretty good. So just a quick, a quick background. I'm 48. I lost about 120 pounds over the last two years roughly. Wow. I started with doing a keto diet, intermittent fasting. And then about six months after that, I started the Body for Life program for about six months. The next six months, I did a lot of running. And then I went in and got a dexa scan and saw that my metabolic rate, my base metabolic rate was like 1400 calories a day base. And I just realized I needed to start adding muscle other types of things to my body. And so I started the five by five program probably six months or so ago. And that worked really well. I was able to put 10 pounds of muscle on and lose five pounds of fat over the last six months or so. But I'm just wondering, how long does it take to rebuild your base metabolic rate back to something reasonable? I've heard the podcast you recently did on like 100 people and how to help them lose 100 pounds. And I know I did it all wrong. And I'm trying to get it right now. So I'm just wondering what that rebuilding process looks like and the amount of time it takes. Yeah, that's a good question. All right. So little recap, right? You lost 120 pounds, which is a significant amount of body fat. So first off, congratulations. That's no easy feat. And then I don't know if you said this part, but I see it in the written question that you sent that now you've got your metabolic rate up to 1600 calories. So you've rose it by about 200 calories. Is that correct? Yeah, between May and October moved from 14 to 16. Okay. So let me put that into perspective for you. Good. Yeah. Let me put that in perspective for you. Cause I know this is a, it seems like a long process. You've been at this now for a while since the beginning of your weight loss journey. But to put that in perspective, 200 calories is a good, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour of cardio every single day. So essentially what you've done from May to October is gotten your body to burn the equivalent of about 45 to an minutes to 60 minutes of cardio every single day. So I know it doesn't sound like much cause it's 200 calories, but that's a great, that's a nice jump 200 calories on its own, right? You're not doing anything extra. It's just burning those extra calories. So you're on the right track. Now, how long is this going to take? Boy, that's a, that's a tough question to ask, but I do want you to understand this that, and there's some theories that surround this that maybe the central nervous system has a memory of a person in terms of how many calories they were burning before or what they had to do to lose weight and where they were for a long period of time. And so it may take a little while, but you're going to be trending up that entire time. So it may take a year or two years or three years even, I doubt, but even to get to the point where you're like, man, my metabolism is roaring and I feel good and everything's, you know, where I want it to be, but consider how long you were in the other state and what you might have done. You said you did a lot of things wrong. What you did to lose that weight in the first place, but here's the good news, three years from now is going to be here anyway, right? So you could either be three years from now with a metabolism that's burning, you know, 2,500 calories, or you could be where you were before or have progressed nowhere at all. So the good news is it's going to trend. It's going to continue to slowly trend in that direction. The bad news, it might take a while, but once you're there, man, it's so much easier to maintain. So stay the course, okay? Stay the course. Allow your body to get comfortable with what's going on, to put its guard down, if you will, to speed up its metabolism. Because remember, your body, your body doesn't necessarily want a faster metabolism because it's always ready for the next famine or the next time that you're going to consume few calories and overwork yourself or whatever. So give yourself a little bit of time. And my advice is to enjoy this process, because if you're counting the days, it's going to feel so much longer than it's actually going to be. Well, there's a couple of things I want to address and ask. So first question I have for you, Tony, is if I had a client that hired me right now after they accomplished what they did at your age, that much weight loss, the thing I would ask you to get your blood work done, I'd be curious to see where your hormone levels are. Have you done that anytime recently? I started actually with a functional medicine doctor. I don't recall actually, and it was under the guidance of the first six months of that doctor, I thought it was going to be an important thing to do for any number of reasons. However, I don't ever recall having my hormones included in those panels to test. So that would be one thing that I would love for you to do is I would say, hey, go get your blood work. And if you don't know this, we have a free form that we now have called Mind Pump Hormones. It's on Facebook. We have two doctors that are in there that are constantly answering questions. They go on twice a month live and answer all your questions. It's absolutely for free. It's something that we're providing for our audience. So I would recommend you go in there and poke around, ask questions, also get a good blood work done and then maybe present that to them and see what they have to say. So I would look into that. And then the other thing that I would dive into a little bit is your programming. So I see you do a five by five kind of a what you call bro split, a trainer, something like a trainer, somebody give to you. How long have you been running that routine for? If I look back the last six months, which is really the six months where I've done weight training, before that, I wouldn't count it as weight training at all. It's time to switch out of that and try something different. Yes. Tony, I put you on maps at a ball or mass performance right now is what I would do. It's time to change up your routine. That's a long time to be doing kind of the same thing. And what's exciting is because you're on kind of a traditional bro split, maps anabolic is a lot different than that. And I think that will actually send a nice signal for your body to adapt and build some more muscle. So that alone with you, you know, probably reverse dieting and trying to increase calories over this time and get that metabolism. I think it will serve you really well. And then getting your blood work. I think those are a couple of things that I would first like to address. I mean, it could be a whole host of different things that we can do to help you. But to Sal's original point, I would also tell you that, Hey, we're doing good, man. You're on a good track right now. If we were trying to speed it up or make sure we don't hit a hard plateau, the two things that I would probably look at is the programming, making sure that I'm phasing you out every four weeks or so to the way your training looks. So your your body is consistently having to adapt to something new that that'll be a good signal for it. And then the other thing I would just, you know, get a deep dive from like a hormone therapist just to make sure your hormones are all balanced and we're doing well there. Those two things I think will keep you going pretty well. Of course. And you know, you listened to that episode, but I want to recap some of the important points of it. You know, make sure your protein intake is high. And don't be afraid to eat a little bit in a surplus. I know it can be frustrating if you see the scale move up a little bit, especially from where you came from. But remember the bigger picture. I think you have already very positive. You've already added 200 calories. Like I said, when I painted the context, that's significant. That's a significant change in your metabolic rate. You're, you can, you can keep moving in that direction. You just got to trust the process and kind of try to allow, try not to allow those, those insecurities, which we all have, right? But try not to allow your insecurities to drive you in the wrong direction, which is, you know, kind of what got you here in the first place. So, so high protein, slow increase in the calories, change the routine. We're going to send you maps and a bulk if you don't have it. I'd love to hear from you six months from now. I feel like if you do the right things in six months, we should be able to get your, your metabolic rate up at least another couple hundred, probably more like four or 500 more calories. Well, get into, get into that mind pump hormone form. We're in there active daily. So, if you get in there and talk with us and talk to doctors, we can all kind of keep an eye on you and track and, and give you any sort of feedback that we possibly can on this journey. Super. Thanks. I appreciate it. No problem, man. Yeah. This, this process can take a little while. I had, I had one lady I remember actually talked about her in the resistance training revolution, but it took us almost a year, you know, and hers was different, right? She wasn't, she didn't lose a lot of weight, but she had damaged herself, quote unquote, damage herself through repetitive competitions, bikini and figure and over training like crazy. But at the end of that year, it was so significant. And then of course later on, I, you know, I would see this person and train with them and eventually become a trainer a year later, two years later, three years later, she would tell me how, and it took me so long to convince her to move in this direction. But then when she did, obviously everything worked out. I remember three years later she'd come up to me and be like, it's so weird. I used to just eat anything off the menu before and gain a pound. She goes, now it's like I can't gain weight. Like I just eat as much as I can and my metabolism is roaring. It just takes a little bit of time. Well, and this is why the whole process of losing weight, we try and highlight like how we would direct that because it really makes a substantial difference in terms of like how long that takes and how long you've been sort of depriving your body of nutrients and building it and focusing on building the body is a much better approach. But the good news is that you can definitely get back to that place where you have adequate amount of calories, you feel good, energetic and strong and it just takes a little bit of time. I really hope he takes the advice and gets his blood work done because Yeah, that could be a big road road. A 48 year old client who was lost over 100 pounds through tons of movement and calorie restriction for an extended period of time. That's a prime recipe for Absolutely. So there's a very good chance that he could have some lower levels of testosterone, maybe thyroid stuff going on. And if he hasn't had that checked out, that being said, he's seeing some positive things already, but it could be he could be seeing even better results than what he's already seeing potentially if his hormone balance is off at all. So hopefully he takes the advice, Tony, you go get that blood work, take advantage of that free form that we have and the brilliant minds that we have in there helping people out and to take their advice because they obviously know a lot more than we do. Hey, if you enjoyed that clip, you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe.